Asian investments in fintech accounted for 43% of the global funding last year reaching $5.4 billion

20 February 2017

Latest stats show that Asia was just one step behind the United States in terms of investments funneled into the fintech industry. In 2016 Asian venture capital investments in financial innovation startups accounted for 5.4 billion US dollars as opposed by 5.5. billion US dollars in the US. Large portion of deals stricken last year came from China.

Reports from CBInsights research agency unveil that last year US fintech startup investments included 422 deals against 165 in China. And while Asia boasted only 20% of such deals, the research further notes that it accounted for 43% of the global funding.

The report comments that nine of the 10 top deals were made in Mainland China with the two largest including 1.2 billion US dollars invested into online lender Lufax and 1 billion US dollars invested in JD Finance, an affiliate company of JD.com, both fundraising rounds led by Chinese players.

The report stops short of mentioning the share placement by Ant Financial in the amount of 4.5 billion US dollars. At the moment Alibaba, affiliate of Ant Financial, is estimated at 60 billion US dollars. The research makes bright forecasts for fintech investment in China during the current year with the dedicated fund established in China in January for fintech acquisition and merger purposes, the capital of which accounts for 1.44 billion US dollars.